The DogSmith Blog

Natural selection affects innate behaviors such as reflexes, modal action patterns and general behavior traits. The difference between reflexes and modal action patterns is that a reflex, the relationship between a specific event and specific response, only affects individual muscles and glands.  Modal action patterns are an orderly sequence of reflex behaviors and affect the [...]

Unconditioned reinforcers are innately reinforcing.  They are called primary reinforcers as they are not dependent on an association with another reinforcer.  Conditioned reinforcers, referred to as secondary reinforcers, are dependent on an association with primary reinforcers.  They owe their effectiveness directly or indirectly to primary reinforcers (Chance 2008 p 135).   Primary reinforcers, though very [...]